List of extinction events
An extinction event is a relatively fast drop in the number of species living on Earth. It occurs when the rate of extinction increases more than the rate of speciation. This is a list of the largest. Major extinction events are important to both geology and evolution.
The Phanerozoic[change | change source]
Lesser Phanerozoic extinctions[change | change source]
Other extinction events in the Phanerozoic also had significant impact on the evolution of the biota.
- Eocene–Oligocene transition. From the middle of the Eocene to early in the Oligocene there were a number of events. The climate became much cooler, ice formed on Antarctica, and there was a turnover in aquatic and terrestrial groups.
- Vendian/Cambrian extinction event. Extinctions have been claimed for three groups: the acritarchs, trace fossils, and the famous Ediacaran fossils. Not much is known about this event.
References[change | change source]
- Huggett, Richard J. 1997. Catastrophism. new ed. Verso.
- Elewa A.M.T. (ed) 2008. Mass extinctions. Springer, Berlin.
- Hallam A. and Wignall P.B. 1997. Mass extinctions and their aftermath. Oxford.
- MacLeod N. et al (1997). "The Cretaceous–Tertiary biotic transition". Journal of the Geological Society 154 (2): 265–292. doi:10.1144/gsjgs.154.2.0265. http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3721/is_199703/ai_n8738406/print.
- Benton M.J. 1991. What really happened in the Late Triassic? Historical biology 5, 263–278.
- Benton M.J. 1995. Diversification and extinction in the history of life. Science 268, 52–58.
- Benton M.J. 2005. When life nearly died: the greatest mass extinction of all time. Thames & Hudson, London. isbn=978-0500285732
- Erwin DH 1993. The great Paleozoic crisis; life and death in the Permian Columbia, N.Y. isbn=0231074670
- McGhee, George R. Jr 1996. The Late Devonian mass extinction: the Frasnian/Famennian crisis. Columbia, N.Y. ISBN 0231075049
- Jablonski D. 1994. Extinctions in the fossil record. Phil Trans Roy Soc B344, 11–17.
- Prothero, Donald 1994. The Eocene–Oligocene transition: paradise lost. Columbia University Press, New York. ISBN 0-231-08091-3